Russia’s centers of cutting edge science
Published 29 May, 2009, 10:10
There are only two space mission control centers in the world. One of them is in Russia’s town of Korolev in Moscow region. This is where Earth connects to orbit, to the cosmonauts and astronauts working at the ISS.
The town, named after the “father” of the USSR's space program Sergey Korolev, is the center of the country’s space industry. Russian space exploration would be impossible without it.
It is home to the Sputnik satellite, spacecraft and moonwalkers. The story of Soviet space exploration can all be seen in a museum based in Korolev. Places like Korolev are known in Russia as “science cities”, or “naukograd” in Russian.
A legacy from Soviet times, they were built over five decades from the 1930s onwards. They were top-secret closed-cities at the time of the Cold War and did not even appear on maps.
It was places like Korolev that the country's best brains were tasked with driving forward Soviet science. To date there are about 80 “naukograds” in Russia.
Today the country’s best space engineers are working in Korolev on the first ever spacecraft capable of carrying a six-member crew.
“I ask people: if Earth is a kilometer in diameter, how far do they think man has gone? They say kilometers. But we’ve only studied a tiny part and there is a long way to go before we explore our own galaxy,” says Russia’s cosmonaut Yury Usachev.
The space mission control center in Korolev manages space missions from beginning to end. There are 15 or 16 sessions a day that find out how things are going in space and how the crew feels.
Zhukovsky is another “naukograd” and the centre of Russia’s aircraft industry. At one of its Institutes there are more than 60 wind tunnels used for aerodynamic research. They study the effects of air moving past different objects such as aircraft, helicopters, and cars.
Back in Soviet times atomic bombs were checked here before testing. Today, the Yak-130 is being tested and as soon as trials are over, the brand new aircraft will bolster Russia's Air Force.
“We study durability and aerodynamics, and also check the engines to make the aircraft safer and more efficient before its first flight,” explains Vladimir Pesetsky from the aerodynamic department.
The cutting-edge science happening in cities like Korolev and Zhukovsky shows that they remain a key part of Russia's future. These cities could have disappeared in the nineties due to a lack of money, but the state made the right choice and supported them.
discuss it Show comments (1)
